When an E-commerce Recruiter Would Hire a Freelancer, Agency, or Full-time Hire for a DTC Brand

As an e-commerce recruiter focused on consumer brands and DTC growth, I’ve seen how hiring strategy must evolve with scale. Especially when you’re bootstrapping.

The playbook changes depending on whether you’re at $0->-$1 M, $1 M->-$10 M, $10 M->-$100 M+, or beyond. Knowing when to bring on a freelancer, an agency, or a full-time hire is a critical lever.

$0 → $1 M - The E-commerce Recruiter’s Playbook for Early-Stage DTC Brands

Goal: Achieve product–market fit with as little risk as humanly possible.

When you’re building from 0, your priority is survival and preserve cash. Every decision is about extending runway and testing hypotheses. As an e-commerce recruiter who’s watched hundreds of brands at this stage, I can tell you the advice you might not want to hear: do everything yourself.

You should answer the first 100 customer support tickets, build your own Shopify store, and create your own ads. At this stage, you don’t need a full-time team.

Who to bring on:

1. Freelancers for project work. Tap that college friend who’s a designer or a copywriter.
2. Virtual assistants for support and fulfillment, often overseas.

As a small scale, agencies will outperform in house teams given your ability to stretch your dollar further.

$1 M → $10 M - How a Consumer Brand Recruiter Builds the First Team

Goals:

1. Step out of daily fulfillment and operations.
2. Build execution support around marketing.

Most DTC founders are marketers by background. That means your biggest early bottlenecks are logistics, operations, and execution.

Typical hires:

• E-commerce Manager — retention, merchandising, campaign coordination.
• Growth Strategist or Generalist — someone to manage freelancers and agencies.

Support structure:

• Agencies for paid media and development.
• Freelancers for design and creative production.
• Junior project managers or operations assistants for coordination.

You get strategic flexibility without locking in high-salary risk.

As a consumer brand recruiter, I often tell founders: this stage is about leverage, not leadership. You’re still building systems, not departments.

$10 M → $100 M+ — How DTC Recruiters Scale With Strategy and Expertise

Goals:

1. Bring in specialists who own core channels.
2. Add strategic leaders who can scale teams.

At this level, execution is handled. What you need is expertise. Director and VP-level talent become crucial. You're enough out of the weeds that you need more visionaries and leadership than you do solely execution focused individuals.

Common hires:

• Head of Growth or Performance Marketing
• Director of Retention / Lifecycle
• VP of Brand or Creative

Freelancers become less effective because alignment & consistency matter. Agencies remain valuable for channel-specific needs like TikTok Shop, Amazon, or SEO.

A 2024 Maddyness survey found that 46% of businesses now outsource a portion of marketing while 45% rely on in-house teams. The right mix depends on your ability to manage complexity and hire senior operators.

At this scale, you should be working with an experienced DTC recruiter to find senior-level leaders who can manage agencies and build frameworks that outlast them.

$100 M+ — The E-commerce Recruiter’s Framework for Scaling Profitably

Goal: Drive maximum value through focus and internal alignment.

At $100M+, the equation flips. Agencies that once provided leverage now cost more than hiring top talent outright. Internal teams align better with long-term goals and brand identity.

You still use agencies for narrow specialties—TikTok Spark Ads, influencer partnerships, or Discord community management—but most revenue-driving functions move in-house.

In a recent study of hybrid teams, it was discovered that a combination of internal and external resources deliver 5–20% lower total cost of ownership and 30–60% faster execution.

Even “diminishing returns” hires pay off at this scale. If your retention director improves a $100M business by just 1%, that’s $1M in added revenue, worth far more than their $150K salary.

Key Takeaways for E-commerce Brands and DTC Recruiters

• Match hiring structure to your growth stage.
• Under $1M, keep it flexible, your job is to learn, not scale.
• From $1M to $10M, invest in leverage (generalists and agencies).
• From $10M to $100M+, hire specialists and leaders.
• Past $100M, internalize excellence and optimize for ROI.

Hiring too early drains cash. Hiring too late slows growth. The right people, in the right structure, at the right time.